In our seemingly endless pursuit of meaning, we are constantly evaluating. Everything we encounter becomes grist for the mill; we are always trying to make sense of the aspects of the world with which we interact. It is quite clear that we are all doing it, but what is less evident is how well we do at it – the extent to which we are able to create good, practical meaning that serves the better aspects of our collective life, personally and in the larger sense.
It seems to be natural human practice to look at one thing within the context of other things: Not only is this flower I’m looking at beautiful, but it may bring to mind other beautiful flowers. When we have these things in our heads, we allow each to influence the other(s). (Another example: ”I think I liked another blog post better than this one.”)
One thing is of particular importance: Comparisons are our own mental games; we make them up, so they do not objectively exist. So, to use the last example, deciding that one post is “better” than another doesn’t mean anything in terms of the objective value of each, which is really nothing. Meaning itself requires an understanding of meaning to exist. In other words, it exists only in us. I would suggest that it takes humans for the beauty of a flower to exist. So, your preferred post is NOT better; you just prefer it. And so it is with everything that winds up in a comparison. All of them are expressions of how we see things; the things themselves are not affected.
But we should look further than the philosophical to get a deeper meaning of how we are affected by comparison. When I compare myself to someone else, one of three things will happen: I will find myself better, worse or the same. If I’m the same, there isn’t a problem unless it triggers competition. If I come up on top, I have created a situation in my head where I am “better than.” Maybe it is just at one thing – writing emails, for example. Or perhaps it’s that I believe that I am a better overall person than the one in the comparison. When I make myself “better than,” I am vulnerable to pride and most likely insensitivity. “Better than” can lead to isolation and alienation: “I’m too good for these people.” Or worse, I come to feel that the other doesn’t deserve as much as I do.
When it turns out that we’re not as good as the other in the comparison, it causes suffering. We take a hit in our self-esteem and don’t feel as confident or secure. Feeling “worse than” can keep us from open-hearted living; we are so concerned with our place in the hierarchy we have created that we neglect full involvement and find joy less accessible. It may negatively impact our discipline because we lose confidence in our ability to reach a satisfactory outcome. It has a negative effect on my meditation practice when I find myself comparing how I meditate with how others do,, real or imagined. And the comparison is completely unnecessary; it doesn’t help me at all to find myself inferior. I can recognize that I have work to do without judging myself.
Big comparisons bring larger, more serious effects. For instance, consider the tragic results of comparing race, country or religion. Many have died from such comparisons throughout history in wars and violent crimes based on them. It is currently sitting in the front row of our cultural conflict, each side firmly believing that the other will bring us to ruin. It is extraordinarily difficult to bring compassion to relationships rooted in the belief of such inferiority. It takes us into the realm of dehumanization. For that reason, communication between the two “sides” in our country has become significantly compromised. We find it much riskier to talk to each other about the culture; our judging and dehumanizing is out of control.
So, the moral of this story is to remember that comparisons are merely games that we humans play. It is next to impossible to stop playing these games completely. We can, however, train ourselves not to take them seriously. Doing so brings us into a more peaceful, loving space. The more progress we make here, the more accepting we become.
How are you doing with your comparisons? What do you experience when you do it? Hit the “Book an Appointmenttab so we can talk about it!
